


Franklin Nelson, Former Spy

by timura



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Daredevil Kink Meme, Gen, M/M, Secret Badass Foggy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-07 21:59:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4279443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timura/pseuds/timura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt doesn't know that his loveable, snarky best friend, law partner, and former roommate was trained to be an assassin and intelligence agent. </p><p> </p><p>Full Prompt here:  http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/2760.html?thread=4895176#cmt4895176</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Signs

When Matt decided that he would live on campus housing for law school, he had expected to be able to tolerate his roommate; he hadn’t expected to like him so much. Still, nobody could blame Matt for being charmed by Foggy Nelson’s ever cheerful attitude and direct manner. Foggy, Matt quickly realized, was also very good at reading him. 

Like any roommate Matt had ever lived with, Foggy had a few quirks. He was a surprisingly light sleeper but never really complained about a lack of sleep. Matt could only tell because he was also a light sleeper and could hear the change in Foggy’s breath at night. Foggy liked to pace the room when studying and working on papers. He knew the lyrics to almost every 80s hit by heart, and many more obscure songs. 

There were other quirks, too. 

Within the first week of law school, Matt and Foggy fell into a routine where they would often walk to class together. Matt would let Foggy lead him as they complained about school and laughed at private jokes. It only took a few days to notice that Foggy liked to pick a new route to their classes and back to their dorm each time. Foggy did the same thing with the bars they regularly frequented, or any place really. 

It took him about three weeks to actually comment on this particular quirk. 

“Hey, why do you walk a different way every time?” Matt asked. They were taking a longer route back from the cafe, and Matt had to admit that he was annoyed. He wanted to return to studying and didn’t really feel they had the time for a “scenic” route. Taking different routes was also something Stick had taught him to do in order to prevent any enemies from potentially stalking him. The memory of Stick made Matt particularly acerbic. That, and this route wasn’t so much scenic as it was disgusting. They were walking through a particularly run down part of Hell’s Kitchen and it was an assault on all of Matt’s senses. 

“Oh,” Foggy started. Matt could hear Foggy’s heartbeat increase rapidly. “Sorry, I didn’t even- It must be confusing for you-I didn’t even realize.” Matt took the flustered reaction to be one of embarrassment at not having considered an aspect of Matt’s blindness. Their friendship was new, and though Foggy was pretty direct about asking about Matt’s needs, he was still learning. 

“It’s fine,” Matt said. “I mean, it’s not like I haven’t walked the city alone before. I just noticed it was something you do.”

“It’s a force of habit,” Foggy said. 

“Funny habit to have,” Matt said.

“What can I say? I like to explore the city. See the sights.” Foggy’s tone sounded light, noncommittal, but his heartbeat remained abnormally fast. 

“Sights? My nose tells me we're surrounded by trash. If it smells this terrible, I can’t imagine it looks much better,” Matt replied with a more playful tone. 

Foggy laughed out loud. “Hey, what if I find the beauty in everything? Or maybe I’m feeling particularly misanthropic today, Murdock. It happens.” 

“You didn’t seem misanthropic with the coffee girl from earlier.”

“Eh, she didn’t even laugh at my John Hughes joke. It’ll never work out. What’s humanity come to?” 

This time they both laughed. Matt felt gratified that Foggy’s heart rate had returned to normal speed once more. 

Matt never brought it up again and Foggy became a one-route kind of guy. 

*****************

It was midterm time and both Matt and Foggy woke up after a meager four hours of sleep. Between the papers due and the exams, it didn’t seem like there was enough time during the day to finish everything. 

Matt scrubbed a hand over his face and reached for his glasses as he sat up. 

He could hear Foggy groaning as he turned his alarm off. 

“You ready for the gauntlet, buddy?” Foggy asked, his voice still groggy with sleep. 

“I’m ready to go back to sleep,” Matt said unhappily. 

“Me too. I’m so looking forward to a post-exam nap. Or maybe I’ll just sleep forever.” Foggy got up and began to gather whatever clothes he had laying around to wear to class. 

“You know, you shouted something in Russian in your sleep last night,” Matt said. 

“What? Really?” Foggy snorted. 

“I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” Matt said. 

“I don’t,” Foggy said. “I listened to some language tapes as a kid. I can’t believe I even remember anything. Must be the stress, dude.” 

Matt burst out into laughter. “That’s great,” He said with a grin. “You should have taken Russian instead of Punjabi. Apparently, you’re really good at it.” 

“No way,” Foggy was laughing as well. “It was so worth it to be able sit to next to Arianna. She always smelled like strawberries.” 

They laughed about the Russian thing for years after.

Years later, Matt wondered if he had listened to Foggy’s heartbeat in that moment, and if he had been lying about the language tapes. 

***************  
In another incident, Foggy frowned as Matt sat with his back to the large restaurant window. “The sun’s in my eye,” he said, “Is it alright if I get the waiter to move us?” 

****************  
Nine-year-old Matt scowled as Stick gave him a quick whack with the cane. “Hey!” 

“Don’t stand with your back to the window, Matty. It makes you vulnerable to being attacked from behind.”

*****************

Matt dragged himself through the hallways back to his dorm room. It was fairly early in the night, but he was already exhausted from the amount of studying he had done. He opened the door only for it to be stopped from swinging all the way open by some wayward object on the floor. 

Frowning, he pushed the door open. Through his vision, he could see that the room was a wreck. Their beds had been moved. So had their desks. Foggy’s laptop was currently in pieces on one of said desks. 

He carefully schooled his expression.

“Foggy?” 

Foggy’s head popped out from the bathroom. “Oh, hey Matt! Sorry about the mess. Really sorry.” 

When Matt went to the bathroom, Foggy was getting up from under the sink. 

“Sorry, Matt, I’ll uh-I’ll clean up.” 

“What happened?” Matt asked. 

“I thought I saw some bugs. They were, uh, really gross. I went a little crazy looking. Matt, I’m really sorry I touched your stuff.” 

Foggy sounded miserable. Matt could vaguely see him run a hand through his hair. He could practically hear the tension in his muscles. Foggy clenched his jaw and fidgeted a little. Well, it was that time of the semester. It was their third year and classes were somehow even harder. In that moment he could tell Foggy was lying about something, but he didn’t want to push it. He knew severe stress tended to make people act a little out of the ordinary and he was pretty sure that his best friend was on the verge of a mental breakdown, so Matt let out a careful sigh and counted to ten to temper his severe annoyance. 

He hated when Foggy was unhappy. 

“It’s alright Foggy. Why don’t we go to the bar? It’s karaoke night at Blue Parrot,” Matt said. 

“What? Uh, I should probably clean up. I’m-”

Matt shrugged. “Foggy. It’s going to be okay. We can clean up tomorrow. We can also buy some bug bombs.” 

“Yeah,” Foggy let out a little huff of air. “Yeah, okay. I could use a drink.” They walked out of the dorm and Foggy shut the door behind him. 

“Karaoke, huh?” Foggy commented. “You never want to do karaoke with me.” 

“I didn’t say I would sing,” Matt said.

“We’ll see if you’re saying that after a few rounds of shots, Matthew Murdock. I know there’s a beautiful rendition of Time After Time in there somewhere.” 

After they got settled at the bar and were well into their first drink, Matt looked up at Foggy and was relieved to find him his usual, jubilant, not-on-the-verge-of-a-mental-breakdown self. 

“So, I’m guessing you were really stressed earlier?” 

“You have no idea, man,” Foggy said into his drink. “God, talking to you has made me feel so much better. It always does.” 

Matt could feel a warmth rising in his chest at Foggy’s earnest praise and he was practically beaming at Foggy for the rest of the night. He forgot about his exhaustion, about the lie. He forgot about their mess of a dorm room. He forgot about the bug bombs, about Foggy’s laptop. After a few drinks, he even forgot about his passionate hate for karaoke. 

He also forgot the lyrics to "I Will Survive" , but the crowd was too drunk and too engrossed in singing along that they would have drowned out his voice anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I have a general direction of where I want to go with this fic, but I'm debating whether I should go straight into Matt finding out about Foggy (through a very entertaining set of circumstances, I assure you), or maybe going into Foggy's past a little more. What do you guys think? Suggestions and feedback would be appreciated. 
> 
> Also, writing Foggy with anything but a happy childhood saddens me which is probably part of the reason why I am struggling with the mysterious secret past thing, haha.


	2. The Other Shoe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Captain America: Winter Soldier Spoilers ahead

For a long time, Foggy convinced himself that he could be buried with his secrets. People did it all of the time. Regular, everyday people kept their mouths shut until they got old and stopped breathing. It didn’t seem that hard.

One day, he realized that the other shoe would have to drop.

It was his last year of law school, and he idly sifted through his mail, lying face-up on the twin- sized bed with a pile of books and papers scattered around him. He let the mail distract him from studying for his final round of classes. It was mostly junk mail. There was one letter addressed to him from a name he didn’t recognize, and he opened it without much thought.

He should have thrown it away, really.

The contents of the letter were innocuous: congratulating him on his impending graduation from law school, inquiring politely about his health, and wishing him well in the future.

He recognized the handwriting, though. He recognized the name of a former trainer signed neatly at the end of the page.

And he definitely should have burned it then, but it didn’t take long for him to read the message hidden within, written in code that didn't take long to crack.

_I’ve been silent for a long time, I know. Things are changing in the future, Franklin Nelson. You would do well to keep your eyes and ears open. -Inna_

A thousand panicked thoughts raced through his mind. How did she know he was graduating law school? How did she know where he _lived_?

He read the words “eyes and ears” again and cursed loudly, and soon he had torn through the dorm looking for anything that could hide a listening device or a hidden camera. There was nothing. Foggy wondered if she would laugh to see him frantically throwing clothes out of his drawers, to see him one step away from tearing through the white plaster of the walls. He wondered if she was even capable of laughter.

He was actually debating on getting a hammer when Matt walked through the door, and Foggy was surprised to see him so calm about the remnants of his panic littering the floor.

Later, after he stumbled home drunk with Matt, after he woke up the next morning and cleaned up the mess, he thought about calling….someone. He could probably get information on this if he raised enough hell, but he remembered a world of secrets, violence, moles, and double agents and he honestly just wanted to ignore it. It was a rabbit hole he was not interested in falling down.

He read the letter over again while Matt was gone and was relieved that it at least made no mention about his best friend, or about Marci. He didn’t want to think about what his former trainer knew about his personal life, about the friends he had made and so carefully guarded his past from.

He debated on coming clean then. There had always been a risk that someone would find out, hadn’t there? But... if his former trainer was communicating with him, some government agency was monitoring it, he was sure of that. Maybe they suspected he’d try to communicate back.

He destroyed the letter, ripping it into pieces and throwing it into his waste bin. He decided to chalk the whole thing up to his former trainer wanting to play mind games, a cruel manipulation- a final joke.

It was easier to live in denial. But the other shoe had to drop.

***********  
The other shoe hadn’t dropped over the course of his friendship with Matt. It helped that neither were particularly inclined to talk about the past.

When Matt did talk about his past, about his father or the nuns, it was in the quiet stillness of their dorm, bits and pieces he said over the years. (Hard liquor was often involved, but not always). The nuns were a wide range of characters that Foggy became familiar with through Matt’s stories: Sister Helen was the silly one who always made jokes, Sister Margaret was the disciplinarian, Sister Nora snuck him extra treats.

Foggy told Matt he was adopted. That his family was nice, though Matt could probably infer that they weren’t particularly close given how rarely Foggy ever visited or talked to them.

Matt would tell him about how much he looked up to his father, how desperate he was to make him proud.

“I miss him. Everyday. I miss him,” Matt had admitted once, as if it were a weakness.

Foggy felt guilt probe little tiny hooks into his heart and threaten to tear it apart. Where Matt trusted him with glimpses into his childhood he had trusted to no one else, Foggy offered few details, and he offered them over and over again. His family was nice. His adoptive mother had wanted him to be a butcher. He told that story a lot because he did find it funny.

He didn’t say anything about the way she looked at him sometimes when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. Her brow slightly furrowed, eyes intense and searching with something akin to suspicion.

He never said anything about the trainers who had taken up much of his life, either. About Weiss, who was generally an asshole, but was also charming and funny. About Inna, who hardly ever showed emotion but to give him a rare smile and was always infuriatingly patient. If he could carve them out of his memory, he would.

The other shoe didn’t drop when he and Marci began to get more serious after his graduation from law school. Marci asked probing questions, which as a fellow lawyer Foggy was great at deflecting but as a boyfriend not so much.

“Do you ever think about, like, your biological parents?” Marci had asked once.

Foggy debated on whether or not it would be super weird to answer “no” when Marci frowned at him.

“You can just say you don’t want to talk about it, you know,” she said. “You don’t have to hide things from me.”

 

*****

The other shoe didn’t even drop when the remnants of SHIELD fell into the Potomac, right after SHIELD dumped all of their files onto the internet. The interns at Landmann & Zach all crowded into a tiny meeting room to watch Natasha Romanoff’s Senate hearing.

“She’s doing the right thing,” Matt said, more intent on reading the braille of the legal document in front of him than on hearing the agent speak.

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed with a small nod.

Romanoff was, no doubt, doing the right thing. Foggy knew that logically. The world needed to know that SHIELD was secretly Hydra and that Hydra was going to launch a dystopia that would have made Big Brother weep with the sheer envy of it all. Dumping the files online was the only way to guarantee that, and in the rush, nobody would have had time to redact anything. There was not enough black marker in the world to censor that information.

Still, as Foggy stared at Natasha Romanoff’s beautiful, smug smile he selfishly hoped she would spontaneously combust right there on national television, especially when the Senator asked if there were any other Black Widow agents in the United States currently.

Romanoff replied honestly. “Inna Aliyeva is currently serving a life sentence in prison for charges of espionage and murder.”

If Foggy seethed with anger and anxiety for the rest of that week, everyone attributed it to a bad break-up with Marci. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being more set up, but I wanted to set up motivation for Foggy to keep his past a secret, and set up a reason for why he won't be able to foreve, and why he really shouldn't. Also I thought it would be funny for him to react to the events of Winter Soldier. Natasha is so darn smug about everything at the end of that movie. 
> 
> Questions, comments, and suggestions for future chapters still quite welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

It took Foggy a full week and a case of beer to work up the courage to look through the SHIELD leaks. SHIELD had a profile on him from when he graduated college. They had a profile on most college graduates, it seemed. That was not a surprise- the CIA openly recruited from universities, so it stood to reason that SHIELD would probably do the same. Foggy felt relief sweep over him as he realized that there was not much on his life before his undergraduate career.

Luckily, most of the files related to him had been destroyed by Aliyeva before she had been captured. For once, he was grateful for his trainer’s foresight. There was still a risk that someone could put the pieces together and figure out his identity, though.

He needed to tell Matt before someone else did.

But months passed and Foggy said nothing. (And if he continued receiving letters like the one in law school, he continued ignoring them. It was just easier not to think about it.)

There was always an excuse not to tell. Matt had his own problems: bad girlfriends and bruises that seemed to get nastier every time he fell. Foggy had once begged him to get a more accessible apartment, one on the first floor without stairs, but they were starting their own law firm, and even if Matt found a new place there was no way he could afford to break the lease and pay the deposit for a new one. Foggy simply did not have the courage to look his best friend in his adorable face and tell him: _You spent three years sleeping in the same room as someone who was indoctrinated and trained in the name of an enemy state. I was meant to infiltrate the highest levels of government, Matty. Yeah, I’m every conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, and I’ve hidden this secret from you since the day we met_. It’d break his heart. Matt had enough trust issues already.

He had even considered telling Karen because she was nice and kind and trusted them and wanted him to touch her face, but he had spent so much time reassuring her about dark corners that he couldn’t tell her that he was the product of one. And then there was the tenement case, explosions, the man in the black mask, Fisk…His life had become such a whirlwind of activity that he barely had time to think about anything but exposing the corruption in Hell’s Kitchen.

(He had even been followed, once. He assumed it was Fisk’s men and lost them easily- he didn’t tell Matt because then he would only be worried and angry at Karen and him for continuing to pry.)

He was too preoccupied with the new developments in his life to worry about his past, or the metaphorical other shoe that had been waiting to drop since the day he’d finally managed his escape.

The night after Elena’s death, after he showed up at Matt’s apartment seeking reassurance, absolution, something, he broke into his best friend’s now busted-up apartment. What he saw dropping to the floor was not the other shoe, but his friend’s bleeding body. And he had seen people die. Knew the horror of blood and violence. The horror of Matt dying in front of him would crowd out those other nightmares for a long time.

*******

He remembered feeling angry, so angry. Matt was putting him and Karen at risk. Two people who needed desperately to stay under the radar.. A selfish nugget of self-preservation worried about what would happen if Matt were found out: Foggy would be disbarred, he would be put on trial, his past would be exposed.

What was worse, Matt threw himself into danger because he felt he had to a duty to,  a right to even. Matt wouldn’t get a trial. Wouldn’t just be disbarred. He would die one day. Matt was already injured. He didn’t want to stop. Foggy couldn’t stand the thought of burying his friend.

“Do you know what happens to people who fight in the dark, Matt? Do you know?”  Foggy demanded. Between reeling from Elena’s death, finding Matt injured, and finding out what he had been hiding all of these years... If it wasn’t the worst day of Foggy’s life, it was incredibly close.

“I never would have hidden something like this from you, Matt. Not from you,” he’d said.

Later, in the stillness of Marci’s apartment, he knew he’d choke on those words.

*********

After Fisks’s arrest, Foggy, Karen, and Matt tried to mold their lives into some new semblance of normalcy. They helped the community with slimy landlords, untangled scary legal documents, and discouraged neighbors from suing each other over petty disputes.

They defended. One of Foggy’s victories was that they could no longer only look for innocent clients. Even with Matt Murdock’s incredible senses of lie detection, it was unrealistic and would run them into the ground. Foggy reasoned that they needed to help those who needed help. Even if the hoards of innocent souls never ran into their arms, they could protect the rights of the residents of Hell’s Kitchen who came to them. If nothing else, Nelson & Murdock could guide those who had committed a crime, and their families through the perils of the legal system

“People make bad decisions,” Foggy had argued, pointedly looking at Matt. “It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, or that they don’t deserve help.”

Matt had, for once, conceded.

Matt continued “Daredeviling” at night, as Foggy liked to call it. Karen smiled and laughed and stared into the coffee pot with a haunted look sometimes. Foggy worried about them both.

They mourned for Elena and Ben. Karen would visit Doris sometimes, on the days she was well enough to see visitors.

Foggy and Matt had reached a tentative truce about Daredevil. Foggy didn’t ask too many questions about it. There were times when he caught himself reaching for his phone at 3AM in the morning wondering if Matt wasn’t injured in a dumpster somewhere, but he always resisted following through. Calling would also make it a lot harder for any prosecutor to believe that he didn’t know about Daredevil, especially if he called Matt’s burner nightly to leave voicemails harassing him about his whereabouts and his well-being.

Foggy would call in the mornings to talk about whatever case they were working on and didn’t want to think about the day that Matt wouldn’t answer.

********

There were times when they were alone. The two of them, either working together in the office or relaxing in one of their apartments. In these times, Foggy would open his mouth to say something. Matt would look at him expectantly, saying nothing. Then the moment would pass.

Matt never said more. He probably thought that it wasn’t his place to harangue Foggy about keeping secrets.

*******

They were in Matt’s apartment one quiet evening, drinking beer, commiserating. Matt opened up a little more about learning to fight from Stick and about meeting him again twenty years later. (About seeing Stick again, Matt only said that they fought, and that it didn’t end well for Stick. He didn’t mention the murdered child.) At first, Foggy had been endlessly amused by the idea of a withered kung fu master teaching young Matthew to hone his skills. The more he learned, though, the more he scowled.  

“That fucking bastard. If I ever see him, he’s not walking away.” Foggy said with such sudden fervor that it nearly gave Matt whiplash. Foggy never sounded sincere about hurting anyone. When the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was blamed for the bombing the city, Foggy had threatened him with fisticuffs.

“Who the fuck takes a vulnerable blind kid and thinks ‘Sweet, new child soldier?” Foggy continued.

“Being blind didn’t make me vulnerable. Stick taught me that, at least,” Matt said, bristling.

“No. You were vulnerable because you were ten and that’s what ten-year-olds are,”  Foggy hissed.

“Well, he left then and he’s gone now,” Matt said.

“Bastard,” Foggy repeated. “A violent, manipulative bastard,” he said. (In his heart, he thought of someone else.)

Matt’s eyebrows shot up.

(Foggy didn’t know who was worse. Stick, who had contributed to Matt’s lifetime of abandonment issues, who was violent, abusive, who honest in saying that he’d never be the friend or the father that Matt wanted. Then there was Inna, who was violent, dangerous, who had promised to be anything he wanted.)

Matt didn’t like talking about his past much, and he seemed to like pressing Foggy about his even less. (Foggy’s heart would race. He’d get panicky. It made Matt feel bad.) So after a few moments of silence, Matt simply said: “He still held his own against me, you know. I doubt you could beat him up with your bat.”

“You’re underestimating my softball skills, Matt,” Foggy said. “He’d never see it coming. Or even better, you could distract him with a karate chop and I’d tell Karen to mace him in the face."

“So we’re bringing Karen in on this now?” Matt laughed.

“Have you seen her when she’s angry, dude? It’d be dumb not have her there on our side.”

******

They were moving forward, slowly, but surely.

Foggy felt guiltier than ever.

*******

It was early one evening when Foggy had decided to go to Josie’s. Soon, he felt the familiar burn of whiskey down his throat. He found himself spending more and more time at the seedy bar alone, as Matt dedicated most of his nights to training or fighting criminals, and Karen was reluctant to venture outside of her apartment these days.

“Josie,” he said. “I think I’m an asshole.”

“What took you so long to realize?” Josie deadpanned helpfully.

“Thanks,” Foggy poured himself another drink. “Would you believe me if I said I had an incredibly dark, mysterious past?”

“No,” Josie said, putting the bottle away. “And neither would the girls at the other side of the bar.”

“What? There’s girls? Here? You’re the worst wingman ever, Josie. Wingwoman. Wingperson?”

“Go home, Foggy.”

*******

Next morning, Foggy called Matt. Matt probably wouldn’t be awake at 9 AM, but Foggy hadn’t slept much and he was getting impatient.

“Mmmnnyeah?” Matt muttered into the phone.

“Hey Matt. I uh, I’m not coming in today. I need a day off,” he said.

There was some shuffling noises, and a few grunts, which he assumed were from Matt attempting to sit up after another night of fighting criminals. He could practically hear Matt grimacing. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” He sighed. “Yeah. There’s just some stuff I gotta do,” Foggy said.

There was a pause, but Foggy didn’t elaborate any further. “Alright,” Matt said finally.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Foggy promised. “I’ll call Karen, too.” He hung up with a final goodbye. Karen’s conversation went much of the same: yes, I’m alright, yes I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow.

“And you still owe me some batting practice, Page,” he said. He was gratified to hear a soft laugh on the other line.

“Alright, Foggy. I’ll see you later,” Karen said.

With new resolve, Foggy sat down at his laptop and followed his first impulse as a lawyer: to gather the evidence. He went through the SHIELD leaks once more, carefully combing for any information that was related to him. Though only vague references survived, it was enough. If nothing else, it helped him organize his thoughts.

It took him a few hours to complete his task. After, he quietly slipped out of his apartment and went to the tobacco shop close by.

*****

Foggy rang on the doorbell of Bess Mahoney’s first-floor apartment, then held up a brown paper bag as the old woman opened the door.

“I got you some Cubans,” he said. “They’re totally legal now.”

“Cubans ain’t shit,” she said, but smiled and took the bag anyway, stepping aside to let Foggy in. As always, Bess made some tea and they settled in on the old living room couch. Foggy laughed when Bess grumbled about Brett’s constant nagging about her health.

“Hey, I told him that you’re a woman who makes her own choices,” Foggy said.

“Damn right I am.”

They settled into a comfortable silence while sipping the tea. Then Bess set the tea cup down on the coffee table.

“I tried to make Elena’s ceviche recipe the other day. I’ll never make it like that woman did,” Bess sighed. “ I don’t think I ever thanked you for taking care of everything after she died.”

“It was the least I could do,” Foggy said. “And I didn’t take care of everything. Matt planned the memorial service at the church. I never-I never uhm,” He shook his head and let his thumb run across the rim of the tea cup. “I think about her a lot.”  

“What happened to Elena was never your fault, Foggy. If you had told her to leave her home, she would have cursed up a storm so loud the angels could hear it,” Bess smiled fondly. “She had conviction.”

Foggy swallowed around a growing lump in his throat. “Yeah. She had conviction,” he agreed. He licked his lips and fumbled over what to say next. He found himself staring at one of the framed pictures on the end table next to him- a picture of Brett fresh out of the police academy. He remembered staying with Bess and Brett when he was younger, how he and Brett had settled into their easy rivalry and how normal it had made him feel.

“It’s not just Elena,” Foggy admitted quietly. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately. I mean, I got into a big fight with Matt about the secrets he was keeping. And I’ve been keeping some big ones this entire time.” He ran his hand through his hair. “That’s why I’m here, actually. I guess I just. I wanted to ‘unburden myself’ as Matt would say. I want to tell Matt, but I came here because... I mean, you probably know the most about-” Foggy waved his hand in a vague gesture.

“Foggy,” Bess sighed.

“How much do you know? I never asked.”

“Not much,” Bess shrugged. “The social workers probably didn’t know much either.”  

Before Foggy could say more, Bess leaned over and patted his knee. “I never needed them to say much. You were always a good person, Foggy. That’s all I ever needed to know.” She settled back into the couch comfortably. “You don’t have to keep secrets if you don’t want to, though. I know how much you boys mean to each other. Why don’t you talk to him first, and whatever happens, I’ll be here.”

Foggy nodded, not trusting himself to speak. After a moment, he pulled Bess into a tight hug.

“Don’t tell Brett I bought you cigars. He really might arrest me this time.”

“He can boohoo all he wants, this is a free country.”

Foggy laughed.

*******

Later, Foggy ran some errands at the bank. He fed ducks at the park and walked around the city, mostly thinking about what he was going to say. He figured that if nothing else, he could crack a few James Bond jokes to lighten the mood.

Matt would probably be furious. Karen, too. Though given her nervous nature lately, she might actually be frightened. The idea that the woman who had stood up to Fisk and had cracked a joke after explosions ended their first (and only) date would be frightened of him- that thought hurt.

With the sun setting, Foggy began to make his way back toward his apartment. He was so deep into his thoughts, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a loud shout coming from the alleyway. Before he realized what he was doing, he bounded toward the source of the distressed noise. He saw a woman on the ground, holding her leg in an awkward position.

“My leg,” she gasped. “I’m hurt.”

“I’m calling 911,” he said, pulling out his cellphone. He could see a reflection in the dark screen- a tall man loomed behind him. Before he had time to react, an electrical charge connected with his neck and burned through every nerve in his body. His muscles seized.

He could hear a voice in his head, clear as a bell.

_Really, Nelson? That’s like, the oldest trick in the book._

The alleyway dissipated into darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: 
> 
> 1.The action is coming, I swear, and so is more about Foggy’s mysterious past!
> 
> 2.Sadly, though the U.S. and Cuba are reestablishing embassies and diplomatic relations, the embargo is still in place and selling Cubans at a store isn’t legal as far as I can tell. You can, however, travel to Cuba and buy them yourself. We’ll just go with it, though, and say this is an AU where it’s totally legal now.
> 
> 3.Comments, questions, suggestions, and concrit welcome.


	4. Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence up ahead, and it's probably going to get more explicit from here on out.

_In the darkness, Foggy dreamed of the past. He dreamed of it often._

_The problem wasn’t that his childhood had taken on a nightmarish tone, but that there was a veneer of happiness to many of his memories. Even his training. He’d been a precocious child, and like many children, he loved learning. He had absorbed everything without question, even if he hadn’t understood it all, he happily worked to master it._   
_Foggy had spent his childhood in New York- at least, as far as he could remember. If he’d ever had parents, they were a vague recollection of fuzzy faces and soft voices. Instead, there were Russian agents who took up his life, who supervised his training and cared for him. There were other children, offspring of the agents living in America, but if they received the same training he did, he was never aware of it. He interacted with them sparingly._   
_Inna would become the steadiest presence in his life, taking over the majority of his training when he was a child. She taught him everything about espionage- how to fight, how to gather information. She always framed these skills as things that were absolutely necessary for survival, not just as an agent, but as a person. Foggy would have a hard time parsing out the lies from the truth later, but he felt that this twisted vision of the world truly was a part of her personal philosophy._

_Her age was nearly impossible to place. Like Foggy, she’d always had soft blond hair. People often assumed she was his mother or his sister, and there was a long time when Foggy wished either were true._

_She was endlessly patient, calm, reserved with her emotions. Others would have called her cold._

_Weiss was brought on a few years after that because he had much more experience working in the United States than Inna did. He had gone to school for linguistics and was the one who had taught a young Franklin several different languages, dialects, and accents. Weiss could figure out almost anyone’s country of origin by their accent, which region they came from, and even certain neighborhoods at times. He was always amused by Foggy’s heavy New York accent that he picked up from living in the city- it had been much stronger when he was a child._

_Together, Inna and Weiss formed a strange team. They exchanged stories about their field work- Inna had worked in Europe and South America for most of the 80s, Weiss had spent most of that time in the American South. They argued about the best ways to teach their student certain skills, if certain skills were really necessary. Weiss, for example, didn’t really think that a young Franklin needed to know how to make several homemade explosives, especially if the ones that shot glue and confetti were going to be placed outside his room in the mornings. Inna didn’t think that Foggy needed to practice ridiculously fake accents every week, and would eventually ask him to speak in his normal voice after awhile. Over the years, they’d grown to understand each other, in a way._

_As an adult, Foggy knew he would be lying to himself if he said that he’d never considered them family. He lied to himself anyway._

*****  
Had Foggy been in a better state of mind, he would have commented on how terribly cliche this was: waking up in a poorly-lit room under an old ceiling lamp. He could feel the coarse ropes that bound him to the uncomfortable metal chair digging into his wrists. Fear gripped him, causing him to take a few shallow, panting breaths as his heart raced in his chest. In his panic, he lifted his head to get a more complete look at his surroundings. There was one man in a metal fold-up chair by the door, and he found that the room he was in was more like an old apartment. The window had a dark curtain over it, but a breeze flew through it. The window must have been open or broken. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious though he could see that it was dark outside.

He could only hope that whatever building they were in was still in the city somewhere. 

Possibilities raced through his mind as he examined his surroundings for a weakness or an escape. There were several, but the man in front of him seemed to have noticed that he was awake now and called to someone outside the room. Foggy cursed mentally, realizing suddenly that he probably should not have indicated he was awake quite yet. He’d been trained for this exact scenario- how to stay calm, how to survive. Still, it wasn’t like he’d had any practice within the last decade or so. Being rusty was to be expected, right?

As some more strangers- two men and a woman- filtered into the room, Foggy wondered who they were working for. Were they US Government? Russian? Mob? The fact that he hadn’t woken up in some underground facility far from New York bode slightly in his favor, right? (Sometimes he had nightmares about being carted off to some government black site for god knows whatever reason, and never seeing the light of day again). The strangers in front of him had mid-atlantic accents that only told him they were American, and nothing else. They wore casual clothing for the most part- jeans, t-shirts, jackets. Functional. At least that threw out being kidnapped by a crazed supervillain or something, though in New York he couldn’t be entirely sure about that either. Foggy could see that they all had pistols, and probably had other weapons hiding under their leather or canvas jackets.

He didn’t know why they’d taken him, but he could already formulate a few guesses. He had a feeling he’d find out soon anyway.

He quickly realized that he would probably have to escape on his own sooner rather than later. Matt and Karen wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong until the morning- and shit. He really hoped that whoever these people were, that they left Matt and Karen alone. For all that Matt acted like it, his Daredevil suit wasn’t bulletproof. Karen had her own reckless streak and similarly vulnerable to bullets and other injuries.

“It’s nice of you to join us, Mr. Nelson,” A man in a leather bomber jacket said. He had short hair and dark eyes that glittered under the lamplight.

“Well, how could I refuse such great hospitality,” Foggy replied acerbically, and silently scolded himself. He’d always had a tendency to flap his mouth without thinking it through. He needed to choose his words carefully from now on if he was going to get out of this relatively intact. From the way his captors were looking at him, they were probably waiting for any excuse to hurt him.

The man directly in front of him smiled in a way that reminded him of the creep who had once hired Nelson and Murdock for Confederated Global.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? We want to know who Daredevil is. The faster you tell us, the faster we can all return to our normal lives.”

Foggy was almost relieved. This probably meant that he had been kidnapped by some gang in Hell’s Kitchen- and as scary as those guys were, they weren’t nearly as terrifying as most government agencies could be. Still, this presented a whole new set of problems. They wanted information that he wasn’t going to give up. As Foggy looked around again, he could see shadows that indicated that there were more people outside the door. He pursed his lips.

“He’s a vigilante who beats up criminals in a red leather suit,” Foggy said. “I don’t know what you-”

“Don’t play dumb here, Nelson. We want to know his name. His real name. We want to know whoever is behind that mask,” the man replied. Foggy could see the other man and the woman standing by waiting as well.

“I don’t know who he is,” Foggy said, letting the fear seep through into his voice. “I really don’t.”

“I don’t believe you,” The man said. “And trust me, you’re going to want me to believe you real quick. We know you two worked together to out Fisk. You have to know who he is. So who is he? Give me a name.”

Foggy shook his head. “You think he would give me something like that? I don’t know. I said I don’t know.”

The man slapped him. The blow left a stinging red mark on his cheek.

Foggy grimaced. He had a feeling that this would be a long night.

*****

 _It seemed like a lifetime ago now he’d trained to for The Mission. (In Foggy’s head, “The Mission” was always capitalized because Inna and her superiors talked about it so damn much.)_  
  
_They’d told him from an early age that anything was acceptable in the name of The Mission, though he wouldn’t know what that meant, what the implications really were, until much later._

_Part of his training included surviving an interrogation, of course: How to interrogate, how to act during an interrogation. When to use force and when not to. He learned basic escape and evasion- how to escape from enemy territory in the wilderness, and how to escape enemy territory in more populated areas._

_He could break out of zipties, handcuffs, and ropes by the time he was a teen._

_Inna always told him never to underestimate the enemy, what they would do to get information. What they would do to break someone’s will, to frighten, to kill._

_Weiss and Inna both agreed that torture wasn’t the best way to gain information. For Inna, good sources came from careful planning and psychological manipulation. Weiss pointed out that simply listening and being patient could be the best way. Alcohol helped- the best information his wife had ever gathered was from a bar in Cairo. Weiss had worked as a taxi driver in Europe and had gained valuable information that way._

_It didn’t mean that Foggy didn’t learn it. Torture, Inna taught him, was a tool of power- a tool for terror. It had its own place._

_“Most of the times, though, the threat of violence is enough,” Inna had told him once_.

****

_He must have been a at least thirteen or fourteen then- when Inna had taken him to the seemingly abandoned warehouse. The man had been strapped to the table and cursed slightly in Russian as soon as they entered the room. Foggy didn’t know what he was there for, but it didn’t matter._

_Inna put the knife in his hand, pushed him gently toward the table. Part of Foggy wanted to plant his feet or run away, but he didn’t. Instead, he approached the table with the knife in hand. He must have been a frightening sight in the darkness- a child playing at being an agent. He hoped that the man couldn’t see the slight tremor in his own hand._

_Whoever the man was, he didn’t seem to notice and only made a slightly desperate noise._

_“You already know that I am very skilled at what I do,” Inna said, leaning over. Her voice was always deceptively soft. “My young colleague here, on the other hand, is still learning human anatomy. He’s new. You will have to forgive him if he cuts too deep.”_

_Inna took the teen’s hand and moved it so that the blade was resting over the man’s bare chest. She nodded toward Foggy, who threw her a desperate look in return. This was the first time he’d ever seen one of Inna’s marks, and every muscle was screaming at him to step away._

_Inna held his gaze._

_After a few moments of hesitation, he began to press down with the knife. He had to detach himself- like he was watching someone else do these things._

_The knife drew some blood. That was when the man finally broke._

_“Please, please,” the man said. “I-I promise I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go. Please.”_

_“Alright,” Inna said. She looked up at Foggy. “Like I said, the threat is often enough.”_

*****

Foggy tried to swallow as his neck bent at that painful angle. He still hadn’t given an answer that the mysterious figures were satisfied with and they were quickly losing their patience. One of his captors had grabbed his scalp to pull his head back and unbalance him. Foggy maintained the frightened persona- though he had to admit that not all of it was an act. 

“I’m starting to lose my patience, Mr. Nelson. If you want to get out of here in one piece, you’re going to tell us who the man in the mask is,” the main said. Foggy didn’t quite believe that these people were in a rush- if they were, they would have taken more drastic measures now. Perhaps they weren’t entirely sure if Foggy knew Daredevil’s true identity or not.

“Listen, I-I don’t know. I swear,” Foggy pleaded. That earned him another blow. He bit back a cry of pain.

“Why should we believe that? You worked together before. Sources tell us that your relationship has continued. So I’ll ask one more time, who is he?”

Foggy looked around at the others who were watching with mild interest, tried to read their intentions. The man in front of him pulled out a stun baton, the electricity crackling. Foggy looked up at the man, still wide-eyed.

“Hear my question?”

“I-I,” Foggy began. “He wouldn’t _tell_  me something like that. He’d have to be an idiot to reveal his secret identity to anyone- especially me! Do you know how many cops and criminals are out there hunting him? He wouldn’t risk something like that!”

“Oh yeah? Why don’t I believe you? ”

“Listen, man. I am a _broke_ lawyer. I am in debt up to my eyeballs and living in New York isn’t cheap, even if you live in Hell’s Kitchen. I have a new firm.” He let panic and desperation take over his voice. “I worked with Daredevil because he bribed me into getting files for him through my connections with the firm I used to work for. He came to me because knew I’d need the money. And he knows that I’d sell him out if I had the chance. I’d tell you guys his identity right now if you could pay my rent this month.”   
His tormentor narrowed his eyes, gaging, judging. The man turned to the others and whispered in a low voice, perhaps debating whether what he was saying or not was true.   
Foggy desperately wanted him to take the bait. If they believed he’d sell the Devil out for money, he may be able to trick them into letting him go.

For once, he wish he had Matt’s abilities. It would be easier to anticipate their reaction that way. While they were huddled around in front of him, Foggy finally managed to get the knot between his fingers. He undid the knot, holding the ropes up so as to not give away his new advantage.

“Alright, Mr. Nelson.” His main tormentor turned back toward him. “If you’re so adamant on keeping his identity a secret, maybe we’ll have to do this another way. Do you think he’ll come if you scream loud enough? Or maybe we should ask your friends over a the law firm? That pretty little secretary has to know something about. Or Murdock- he’s blind but-”

Foggy’s fist flew out and connected with the man’s jaw. The sound resounded loudly through the small room and the sudden move left the man’s colleagues momentarily stunned. Foggy rose smoothly from the chair just as the man dropped to the ground.

The man with the stun baton moved toward him, and this time Foggy anticipated his attack. He wasn’t going to get caught by the electricity a second time. He grabbed the weapon as the man thrust it toward him and wrenched it from his grip. He turned the weapon on his attacker, dropping him as well. The woman who had been with the group began to pull out her pistol, but he managed to use the baton on her as well.

The last man ran out of the room, presumably to warn his colleagues. Foggy ran toward the window, looking out to check the fire escape. It was an old building and the fire escape was rusty. He cursed. He had hoped that it would hold his weight and make for an easier escape than trying to get through the building without getting his head blown off, but it seemed that he would have no such luck.

He picked up a pistol from one of the captors groaning on the ground and made his way out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not happy with this chapter and it's been through several drafts, but it's been a long time and if I didn't post it now I probably never would. I am posting this fresh so I will probably have to go back and change typos. 
> 
> Hopefully any questions and confusion will be cleared up within the next few chapters. Still, feel free to drop comments and suggestions if things are too confusing.


End file.
